Post-Christmas travel is heavily disrupted by North-East blizzard
Sunshine and deep piles of sparkling snow blanketed the Northeast on Monday, but for frustrated commuters and holiday travelers struck by the winter’s first ferocious storm, the beauty was short-lived.
Gusting winds kicked up formidable snowdrifts further crippling an entire New York metropolitan region trying to dig out, shutting down the three major area airports for most of the day, stopping commuter trains and some subway lines — even stranding some passengers on trains overnight — and causing nightmarish delays without much of a sense of when the conditions would improve.
Newark International and John F. Kennedy International airports will both open at 6 p.m. for departing flights only, Sara Beth Joren, a spokeswoman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said. La Guardia Airport opened at 4 p.m., and some flights would be leaving later Monday evening, Ms. Joren said. All three airports are expected to resume arrivals and departures on Tuesday morning.
New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, speaking at an afternoon news conference, succinctly captured the power of the storm: “A lot of snow, every place,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “It was a very heavy snowfall, and as you know, it was accompanied by intense winds.”
But, he concluded: “The world has not come to an end, the city is going fine.”
Still, nearly two feet of snow was dumped on the New York area through the overnight hours, and its cumulative effects were plainly evident during the day on Monday.
High winds damaged switches for train lines, knocked down power lines, drifted snow perilously deep on tracks and even caused plow trucks to get stuck. City buses stalled on hills and cars abandoned on side streets complicated snow removal as New York struggled mightily to recover before the evening commute began.
Please read my Guidelines For Comments before posting. They are mostly common sense. But as my grandmother was wont to observe, "sense" is not as common as it used to be.
Unless otherwise noted all written material on this blog is copyrighted by the blog owner. All rights are reserved except as stated below.
I generally have no problem with someone quoting Ad Orientem unless it's for commercial purposes or something that's copyrighted other than by me (in either which case kindly ask first). In all cases please be polite and include attribution and a link. Remember good netiquette.
A conscientious effort is made to respect the rights of others when quoting or displaying their work on this blog. As a general rule only excerpts are posted with a link to the original source. Common sense exceptions may include instances where it is believed in good faith that the content falls within the public domain or where the quoted content is so brief that excerpting is not practical.
1 comment:
Post a Comment